Last Night, In Basketball: The Celtics Used Two Plays To Carve Up The Kings

Much of NBA offense is predicated on confusing the defense so that they don’t know what’s coming. Disguising your action, or running different actions throughout the game, keeps the defense off-balance and helps create the openings you need to score points.

Sometimes, though, one play just keeps working. And there’s something to be said for not messing with something that works. So you just keep going to that same play over and over, until the defense proves it can stop you.

Sometimes, the defense, try as they might, are unable to figure out a way to actually stop you. That’s what happened Thursday night as the Celtics erased a double-digit lead against the Kings by running essentially the same two actions for the entire second half.